Following the astonishing success of How the Word Is Passed, his work of narrative nonfiction, author Clint Smith (Counting Descent) returns to poetry with Above Ground, a tender yet powerful collection centering his experience as a Black man, a husband, and a father in a rapidly changing, often tumultuous world. This hefty collection of 70 poems swings with almost disorienting speed between gentle observation ("Ode to the First Smile") and fiery critique ("Your National Anthem"), each entry lyrical and insistent that the fabric of a life is woven of all these things: family and culture, the personal and political.
Smith often uses the poetic voice to directly address his children, drawing upon the stories of generations before them, as he does in the brief "Legacy," a mere seven lines closing with, "Your paternal great-grandfather was a fist/ full of embers that never burned/ the ones he loved." In other poems, his perspective moves higher, viewing global issues through the lens of fatherhood, as in "We See Another School Shooting on the News," which concludes: "I am standing in a thunderstorm/ attempting to shield you from/ every jagged slice of yellow sky./ I am trying to inhale all the smoke/ from this burning world while/ asking you to hold your breath." Smith knows well the way dark and light must exist together, in poetry as they do in life, and Above Ground is full of the difficult beauty born of that truth. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian